


showing wikilist of current pretenders (this list is incomplete. you can help by expanding it)

by auxanges, liasangria



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human/Troll Society (Homestuck), Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, Ashen Romance | Auspistice, Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-08
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2019-10-24 15:29:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17706851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auxanges/pseuds/auxanges, https://archiveofourown.org/users/liasangria/pseuds/liasangria
Summary: Earth has been in the Alternian Commonwealth for far longer than Rose Lalonde, her girlfriend, and her girlfriend's girlfriends have been alive. It's really quite peaceable, until it's not: when a gaming session accidentally (allegedly, anyway) becomes an information theft, all four are on the run as they try to figure out what to do next, and whether it will be worth it.





	1. external references

**Author's Note:**

> a painfully delayed entry for the pswap big bang. im here to rectify my not writing enough gals problem and i have the help of liasangria to guide my weary gremlin hands with her beautiful art

“I have to go to the store,” you say three days before everything in your life goes up in flames. “Do we need anything?”

Kanaya glances up from her hemming. You don’t know what she’s hemming, just that it’ll fit better when she’s done. “Eggs, I think. We always seem to be needing eggs.”

“It has indeed been a staple in this apartment,” you agree, scribbling it on your palm. The ink in your pen is running a little low; you scratch along the meat of your thumb to get it going. “Anything else?”

She wets the thread as she thinks. “Soap. Batteries. Gauze, the thick kind, if you can find it. Refills for my suture kit.”

You have limited palm space, so you migrate the list to your forearm. “Am I missing anything?”

“A kiss,” says Kanaya.

You bend to oblige her, wiggle into a cardigan and boots, and head downstairs to the main road.

 

* * *

 

The closest convenience store is only a five-minute walk from your place, and its pharmacy is well-stocked for the thrill-seeking clientele that frequents your district. FLARP is a point of interest that, in your relationship, has remained purely intellectual on your side: you study Kanaya’s role in her party like Darwin on the rocks of the Galapagos, making sketches and taking notes while subspecies of mockingbirds beat the shit out of each other.

Earth has been in the Alternian Commonwealth for centuries, and you still have not come across a concrete answer for why trolls enjoy raising the stakes on a recreational basis. The task, you suppose, shall fall to you.

“Hey, Lalonde,” the tealblood behind the counter waves as you nudge the door open with one foot. You suspect she has a thing for you, on days where your self-esteem is particularly high. “Where’s your flush?”

“She’s got a thing later,” you reply over your shoulder, scanning the shelves. Floss, surgical strength, disinfectant, gauze, industrial-grade sopor patches with a weird mascot emblazoned on the package—all tumble into your basket. The eggs go on top; you scrounge up the rest of your dermal shopping list, add a new book of crosswords for yourself, and pay without much more small talk.

You dig out quarters from your wallet to the tune of daily announcements broadcast citywide. _Harbour drills will take place at 1700 hours. There is no cause for alarm, unless you are currently a fugitive from the law. If this concerns you, kindly turn yourself in to the nearest authorities for discipline._

“See you soon,” calls the troll. You tug your cardigan in around yourself.

 

* * *

 

It’s not that you don’t like Kanaya participating in the session. Some of her oldest friends are there: you are not the type of girl to get between interpersonal relations. You are also not the type of girl to even play at understanding the intricacies of the quadrant she occupies.

Not for lack of trying, of course. The concept of organizing responsibilities into a doodleable medium is as refreshing as it is inconceivable, and you like to pick it apart, as is your tendency in most fields you come across, expertise pertaining or not. It’s just—

“Oof.”

You almost crash into your superintendent, a tall, tall troll with horns that required a lot of ceiling resizing. “Afternoon, Makara.”

He throws up a peace sign and ambles off, presumably to collect rent or to tear limbs from loiterers. Sometimes they intersect, judging by the amount of carpet cleaner you smell in the lobby of your apartment.

Kanaya is already packing her gear when you brandish the eggs like a trophy. Her hair is immaculate; her lips are painted in a shade she knows you love; she could rip a man apart without so much as a button popping open. All the things a girl looks for, really.

“I have your supplies,” you remind her.

“Thank you.” She checks them over, even though you both know you always get just what she needs. It is the little things that make your relationship spark, sometimes. “It’s a filler today, I think.”

“Did Vriska say that?”

“Yes.”

“Then it’s not a filler,” you reply, a quirk of your lip betraying you. “That girl’s exposition could fill a library and a hospital wing simultaneously.”

“She’s the best game master we’ve had in a few years.” Kanaya tucks the suture supplies and bandages into a small bag that would have Mary Poppins bursting into incomparable tears.

You scoff. “That’s only because I’ve never tried it.”

She pauses her packing to give you a tried and true look.

And she’s right, obviously. There has always been…something stopping you from giving your girlfriend’s favourite and most violent hobby the old college try. Barring the obvious degree of bodily harm involved, you simply aren’t a big fan of not being the best at something.

From what you know about Vriska and Terezi — which is quite a good amount, if you do say so yourself — you are not the only one who fits in this category.

“At least come with us,” adds Kanaya, “have a look and come up with some charming domestic excuse for why we have to bow out and head back early if there is one monologue too many for your liking.”

You pretend to think about it. “We have to beat all our rugs out with a broom to get rid of dust.”

“We have to polish all our silverware.”

“We have to buy silverware to polish.”

“We have to trim our hedges.”

By then, you’re laughing too much to really put up a fight, and you shoulder Kanaya’s bag and follow her to the game arena.

 

* * *

 

Team Scourge has held the morally ambiguous roleplaying crown for the past few years to the point where their only real competition is themselves. Despite this, Serket and Pyrope enjoy spitting out challenges on an almost weekly basis: as such, they are already waiting for you when you step out of the cab and hop the fence to the quarry.

The stomping grounds of your hatefriend consist of walls of dynamite-blasted limestone, covered in fossils that look as alien as your hatefriend herself. The quarry is as blue as she bleeds, and you can see clear to the bottom some 200 feet beneath you. There are rumours throughout your district that something huge lives in some hidden grotto, an escaped lusus from back when the Commonwealth still ensured lusus distribution. You breathe in the smell of stone and copper and smoke, and toss your bangs from your eyes.

They’re already here, unsurprisingly. Terezi grins either at you or at the space directly behind your left shoulder; if you didn’t spend as much time around her as you did, you might have the urge to piss yourself a little. “Well, well! Are you finally taking the plunge, Rosie?”

“Thematic metaphor, but no. I’m merely supervising.”

“There aren’t any supervisors in FLARP,” interjects Vriska, around the hair elastic she’s got between her fangs as she ties up her hair. “That’s like wearing inflated external fish bladders on your arms in a puddle.”

“They’re called water wings,” you say.

Terezi says, “That’s a dumb name.”

They high-five. Watching Vriska and Terezi high-five is a game of chance: sometimes it’s a home run and both girls shake their hands out and swear, sometimes you get smacked as collateral damage when Terezi inevitably misses the mark by a foot. This one is solid enough to echo across the quarry.

Kanaya pulls a small square from her bag and starts unfolding it. It’s a towel the approximate size of half your bedroom, with an impressive array of bloodstains. She lays it on the rocks (stain-side-down, ever the cavalier) and toes out of her shoes. Your cardigan remains on. “I’m instating a rule,” she announces, regal as a queen. “Whosoever antagonizes Rose to join your antics this session receives a negative five on every roll.”

“Five? That’s shit, Maryam,” Vriska says, followed by “dammit” as the labials in your girlfriend’s name cause her hair tie to go flying.

Terezi plunks down on the towel, stretching her arms skyward. “Besides, they’re your antics too.”

“I did not say I was exempt from the penalty.”

Vriska ties off the ponytail. You would never admit to it out loud, but with her costume and general swagger, it cuts quite the picture—she even snipped a hole in the back of her hat to let her updo pass through. “Point taken. Oh—here they come. Up, Neophyte!”

You steal Terezi’s spot as they take off to join their campaign-mates of the week. Kanaya had been right about a filler arc, then: your friends are pretty keen on saving most of the action for themselves. The quarry distorts their dialogue, their shouts ricocheting back across the water. Kanaya tucks a spare double-point behind her ear and resumes a project. You let yourself relax a little more—her reaction time has yet to leave you unimpressed.

“She likes you.”

You crack one eye open. Bummer, you hadn’t even realized they’d closed. “Who?” you ask innocently.

“Vriska. Well—she doesn’t _like_ you, she—you know…”

 _Do_ you know? “That’s why she’s on my case to play. She wants to see what I’ve got.”

Kanaya looks, as she often does, quite satisfied. “Lucky for me, I already know what that is.”

You give her a shove, and she gives you a quip to save it for Serket. Then someone breaks a collarbone and you let her get to work.

 

* * *

 

Three hours and a sizeable chunk of your recent purchases later, the session is called: the lowest castes in their party still have enough time to haul ass before curfew, but even Kanaya has a few hours left. Besides, despite the sun’s timidness, it’s pleasantly warm the longer you lounge on the rocks at the quarry. You’re brushing up on your sister’s Mad Libs rendition of _Richard III_ when a dripping wet Terezi Pyrope blocks your remaining rays and wrings out her cropped hair. “Guess what!”

“Your lonesome upbringing never cleared up how to properly dry off after a swim?” Kanaya asks: your high-fives are always on target, and this one is no exception.

“Oh, my greenest companion, your snide comments never cease to delight the well-tailored pants off my posterior. But no! The what is what’s _in_ the water. That’s not me.”

She turns to sweep an arm out to the quarry, and you follow your best estimate of where she intends to point. A familiar pair of horns surfaces. “You’re showing me Vriska?”

Terezi’s grand gesture turns into a smack of her forehead. “Use your brain, Lalonde! Vriska is merely a pawn—”

“Hey.”

“—that can find the quarry’s treasure!”

“Yeah, that’s fair.”

You glance back at Kanaya, but she seems to have as little idea of what’s going on as you do. “The only treasure in the quarry is the Tupperware container full of squid jerky you made me bury last month.”

“Thanks for that, by the way! Really took the edge off the whole torn ligament thing.” Vriska’s voice snakes along the waves and up your spine, and you are reminded of what your flush had said about her.

Terezi’s voice, in contrast, drops to a whisper. Through her teeth, it sounds like branches that strike your bedroom window when the moon forgets to show itself. “This is real, Rosie. We asked, no one fessed up to putting it there. Vriska’s the best swimmer and even she wouldn’t sink a prop just to find it herself later! That’s just childish.”

Kanaya adds, “she only did it three, maybe four times when we were younger.”

Vriska whistles. “You coming or not? You can hold your breath the longest!”

“Who told you that…?” You give Kanaya a pointed look, and she pretends to find something fascinating under one of her claws.

You sigh. The cardigan comes off, and Terezi joins Vriska in whistling. _You owe me_ , you mouth to Kanaya. She gives you a dainty wave with one of her needles.

 

* * *

 

The water is frigid. You hop in slow motion from foot to foot, your jaw tight enough to cut wire before you force the air from your lungs. The cold response leaches from your bones as you paddle in; you breathe.

And dive.

When you were twelve, you had a lake a bike ride away behind your building, and you swam down and down and down to follow something that liked to sing you songs. When you told Kanaya this later, she paled as much as her blood let her, and you did not bring it up for a year or two. It’s practical, at the least—your lung capacity would probably only benefit from actual gills at this point, and the sea trolls on your planet do not stick to land.

Your eyes adjust quickly to the shadows the outcrops of limestone cast on the path Vriska points out. She keeps up with you easily: you have watched her jump off burning rafts and not surface for four and a half minutes. But your record is four minutes and fifty-three seconds, and the fact that she respects it is…well, it’s flattering.

Right. The treasure.

The pair of you kick down to a crack between boulders. Vriska motions you through, and kicks off the outcrop to surface. You do not watch her go.

The crack gets narrower and narrower, until you’re swimming sideways. There is a distant, but not unfamiliar, tuneless hum between your temples. When your fingers brush against something that is decidedly not a rock, you wish Serket had stuck around, just a little.

You grip the object (and that’s what it is, not a chest or anything of the like) and kick back up to join her, spitting out quarry water and holding it up to the light.

She gives you a fierce grin, and your heart, to put it colloquially, does some real stupid shit.

 

* * *

 

“What is it?” calls Terezi, even before the two of you have hauled yourselves back on the rocks.

“If we knew, I don’t think we’d have bothered to look for it,” you muse. “How did you even spot it from your position?”

“I have great eyesight,” says Vriska, before beaning Terezi in the temple with one of her dice when she bursts out laughing.

Good enough, you guess. You kneel on the towel, turning it over in your hands. It’s a box, you think—the size of an atlas but half as heavy, and with no discernible openings or seams. Kanaya leans on your shoulder to have a look. Terezi leans over your other one, and you lift it up for her to get a good faceful of the mystery box.

She gives it an experimental sniff. “Doesn’t smell like anything from my department,” she announces.

You really cannot help but take the bait. “What does your department, uh—”

“Kind of like Sour Patch Kids you find in the back of your cupboard,” says Terezi, “except dunked in alcohol.”

“That sounds disgusting.”

“That’s the law, Rosie!”

Kanaya hands you another towel, and you run it over your hair as she chimes in. “It’s obviously got some sort of security system built into it, but I don’t see a seal or sign or anything.”

Vriska wrings her ponytail out on the rocks. Everything smells like metal. “So now what? We leave it alone? Chuck it back into the quarry?”

“Those are the two most un-Vriska things I’ve heard you say all day,” you reply.

She grins at you again. “I say we break for today. You guys free to meet up tomorrow and check this shit out?”

“I have to report to Central Care just after first light,” Kanaya says, “but that’s about it. Terezi?”

“Afternoon classes are cancelled after that staff dismemberment issue last week.”

“Condolences. Rose?”

You shake your head. “I have nothing going on.”

“Sweet.” Vriska leans over to tap one claw on the box. “Bring that over to my place tomorrow. When Maryam and Pyrope are done with their fancy responsibilities crap they can join us.”

You strike your deal on the rocks and pack your towels and curiosities before the curfew enforcers finish lacing their boots.

* * *

 

It’s difficult to fall asleep that night. Kanaya usually rises early, and she kisses you goodnight and good morning in between what feels like particularly long blinks. On your nightstand, the box looks entirely out of place; if you were a little more liberal with your personifications, you would say it misses its quarry hiding place.

Kanaya’s already gone when you finally roll out of bed, bleary-eyed and semi-sleepwalking to the coffeemaker. Your phone chimes the night’s texts: you swipe the daily news briefs away and get to a handful of midnight messages from your buddy in crime.

AG: So I’ve 8een thinking!  
AG: The 8ox has no seal, right? That can rule out, like, most of the popul8ion right off the 8at!  
AG: Do you think we might 8e dealing with some off-the-8ooks shit here?  
AG: Also HOW can you 8e snoozing 8t a time like th8s????????   
AG: ROSE.  
AG: This is EXCIT8NG!!!!!!!!  
AG: We may 8e on the verge of a discovery for the 8ges!  
  
AG: I am un8elieva8ly sleep depr8ved!!!!!!!!!

You roll your eyes into your half-filled mug, and thumb a reply while you choke down the brew.

TT: Aren’t you afraid we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves, here? This could be a total dud, for all we know. It could be just an empty box.  
TT: Or worse, it could be dangerous.

Vriska is awake—either that or she never went to bed.

AG: Uh, pretty sure an empty 8ox would 8e the worse scenario here.  
AG: 8ut it’s early, so I’m willing to give you the 8enefit of the dou8t! You’re welcome.  
TT: I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Start untangling your hair.

 

* * *

 

You’re at Vriska Serket’s front door in eighteen minutes. She lives on a stretch of tightly packed volcanic sand that has no real apex; settlers levelled this patch of rock you all call home centuries ago to clear room for all their crap. It’s unclassified knowledge—you got some trivia on the back of a cereal box and spent a charming breakfast with Kanaya quizzing each other on the finer points of genocide.

She’s dressed, if you can even call it that, in tired jeans and an even more tired shirt that reads _the F in FLARP stands for FUCK YOU!_ in crooked teal iron-on letters (Terezi is quite the competitor when it comes to hatchday gifts). She has one sock on; her glasses are pushed into her corn-broom of a ponytail and a patch with little ducks is slapped over her dead socket; she looks like she just won all thirteen lotteries, possibly by shooting the overseers and burning all the tickets except hers.

“You ready?”

“I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be ready for, but yes,” you reply, sidestepping discarded props—namely, a pair of boots you’ve seen as often in Kanaya’s office as on Vriska’s feet.

The inside of her place is a maelstrom of clothes, books, dice—an organized chaos you have come to associate with her. You gently push some maps aside and reach into your bag to set the box on the desk.

Vriska’s pulled up a chair to examine it intently. “Did you figure anything else out?” she asks.

“What do you mean? I was sleeping, Serket, you should try it sometime.”

She blows a raspberry at you. “I was thinking.”

“Shocking development.”

“Geez! You’re so critical in the mornings.”

But you can see how pleased she is; Vriska enjoys when people take her bait, but she likes it even more when people drop their own. You hold this fact in your back pocket for more intimate encounters like this one.

You claim a stool and squint at the box, pursing your lips. “It still looks completely sealed. I don’t see any water damage.”

“Uh-huh. So what does that tell us?” She props her feet up on the desk beside the box. Somehow, in the past thirty seconds, she has acquired another sock.

“That…it’s coated in hydrophobic material?”

“Maaaaaaaaybe.” Vriska waggles her eyebrows. “Any other guesses?”

“Not only one cup of coffee into the day, no.”

She bends at the waist to lean towards you. Vriska doesn’t have many lights in her place, but you can see sparks in her eye, shadows along the planes of her cheeks, the arc of her jaw.

Kanaya’s told-you-so voice hums a triumphant little march in the back of your head. You shoo her off.

“Lucky for you,” Vriska says, tossing her hair back to fix the malignant growth passing itself off as her updo, “I have a few.”

Her confidence is awful. It’s contagious. You wish you had never met Vriska, and you wish you had met her ten years ago like Kanaya did, or fifteen years ago like Terezi. You say nothing; it’s a game of patience.

“If it’s waterproof, it must belong to someone who would need that kind of thing, right?” She is leaning insistently closer. The rubber duckies on her patch glare at you like you’re standing trial.

“That’s a reasonable conclusion, yes,” you agree. “But, Vriska—”

“But, Vriska,” she interjects, pitching her voice up half an octave, “Vriska, saltbloods don’t live on this colony! The last known pods of seadwellers migrated to the Antarctic centuries ago, Vriska!”

You cross your arms.

“I may have gotten a little carried away with that impression,” she admits.

You look back at the box. “Maybe a little.”

But still. “But still…”

“Fuck yeah!” Vriska slaps you enthusiastically on the back. It feels a little like getting hit by a small car between the shoulder blades. “Let’s crack this son of a bitch!”

 

* * *

 

You do not crack the son of a bitch.

After three hours, two coffee breaks, and a very immersive lesson in Alternian curse words, you slump forward onto the desk. The box sits between you, defiant. Vriska’s hair is probably multiplying, and she’s doing that thing where she rubs at her eye until Terezi smacks her hand away.

Terezi isn’t here, though, so you pick up the slack, swatting her wrist. “You’re not five, Serket.”

“And you’re not my moirail or my mom,” she retorts. “What I do with body parts I was dumb enough to lose is my business!”

You roll your eyes; you make sure she sees that you have both of them attached to your skull. “Whatever you say. Go take a shower while I siphon more bean nectar from your kitchen.”

Vriska leaves you to contemplate your prize some more before stretching to refill your mug. You stare into the swirling coffee like it holds the answers to the questions you haven’t asked fate yet.

For all you know, the two of you are running in circles, or maybe some other, worse undiscovered shape to run in. But at least you’re not running alone.

Your reflection of the moment is cut short when Vriska barges into your personal space, trailing water, for the second time in as many days. She’s in briefs and a tank top, and the ducky patch is presumably lost to the sands of time or FLARPing beaches. Her grin could cut through steel.

“You’re supposed to take off your underwear before you get in,” you remind her, dunking a sugar cube into your coffee and sucking on it.

“Salt!” Vriska yells in response.

“No, it’s sugar.”

She rolls her eye. “No, dipshit. Get me some salt. From the nutrition block?”

You are both already standing in the kitchen, but you forego this information in favour of hopping off your stool, sticking the rest of the half-melted sugar cube in your mouth. You chase down coarse salt that looks older than any of your small party and most of the midbloods in your district.

Vriska’s grabbed the box off the desk and started back down the hall before glancing over her shoulder. “You coming?”

“I don’t really have much of a choice,” you concede, knocking back your coffee and following.  

Somewhere along the way, you lose some of your layers: you can hear Vriska’s shower running down the hall, and as you strip to your underwear she throws the door open and—

“What the hell, Serket? You can’t just lob that thing into the shower, we don’t know what’s inside!” you hiss, seizing her wrist. Her pulse is slower than yours, despite her excitement.

She laughs. “Just making sure you’re still on board for this shit.”

“I’m in my tighty whities in your bathroom with a cup and a half of table salt.”

“Should I whistle? This seems like a whistling situation.”

You snort and let go of her wrist. Vriska toes back into the running shower, grimacing. “Blech. The temperature went up.”

You prefer boiling yourself like a lobster during your ablutions—it keeps the temptation to pursue your free-diving intrusive thoughts at bay. But you are nothing if not courteous, and finagle with the shower controls until you find a happy medium. Vriska watches you, briefly, before setting the box down on the shower floor and whipping her hair back from her face. It hits you in the shoulder.

“Now what?” you say, even though you have a good idea of the answer.

“Now,” says Vriska, taking the salt you didn’t realize you were already holding out and unscrewing the cap, “we see if we’re right.”

She dumps the contents into the shower, which makes you sneeze; very little else happens. You both kind of squint at the box, blinking water from your lashes.

“That’s it?” Vriska groans. “I was really banking on something a little more exciting hap—”

The shower explodes.


	2. further reading

You blink sunspots from your eyes and take stock of your limbs. Everything’s still attached, which is always an excellent start. Water’s still pelting your face, and upon further inspection you realize it’s because the shower’s infrastructure is actually still intact. What blasted you back against the wall?

Twisting, you push into a sitting position that doesn’t make you feel like a soggy pretzel. “Vriska?”

“Ugh.” She’s rubbing her socket again; you snap your fingers at her, and when she opens her mouth to snark at you she trails off, slack-jawed.

It isn’t hard to see why.

The box’s outline is splintered in light of a colour that immediately makes you nervous. It hums with unlocked potential, casting scrolling symbols along the tile. Trying to follow them makes your head hurt; you chalk it up to the dramatic unlocking mechanism getting close to concussing you.

“What does it say?” Vriska asks. A glance over tells you she’s not keen on trying out her cryptography comprehension, either.

“No clue.” You haul yourself to your feet, extending a hand. She accepts it with another grunt, fumbling for the water controls. “I must confess I had my doubts about this. I underestimated you, Serket.”

She waves off your implied apology. “Most people do.”

When Vriska turns off the water, the symbols fizzle out of existence; the light doesn’t fade from the box, though. You examine it from a safer distance, a smile exposing you (as your smiles often do). “I do hate leaving things unfinished, don’t you?”

Her grin returns, bathed in a glow that, according to all cleared records, does not belong on your annexed planet. “Why bother starting something if you can’t end it?”

“I’m enjoying these rhetorical questions, but do you happen to have a spare towel? The AC in here is cranked to high hell.”

* * *

 

TT: We need you to do something unorthodox.  
GC: 1 4M 4LR34DY FR13NDS W1TH VR1SK4  
TT: Yes, Vriska is involved, how astute of you.  
TT: We figured out how to open the box.  
GC: N1C3  
GC: WH4T W4S 1N 1T  
TT: That would be where you come in.  
TT: The information contained in the box is written in a script I can’t recognize.  
GC: SO YOUR PL4N 1S TO 4SK *M3* TO R34D 1T  
GC: 1M FL4TT3R3D ROS13 BUT YOUR3 4 L1TTL3 L4T3 TO THE BL1ND TROLL JOKE P4RTY 1 H4V3 NO MOR3 GOOD1E B4GS TO G1V3 OUT  
TT: I appreciate the sentiment, but what we need is access to the Archives. If any place has reference material for this kind of technology, that would be it.  
GC: L3T M3 G3T TH1S STR41GHT  
GC: YOU 4ND S3RK3T W4NT M3 TO T4K3 4DV4NT4G3 OF MY L3G1SL4T1V3 CR3D3NT14LS TO FUNN3L YOU 1NFORM4T1ON  
GC: 1NFORM4T1ON TH4T 1F 1 M4Y B3 SO BOLD TO GU3SS 1S L1K3LY R3STR1CT3D UPON S3V3R4L P3N4LT13S TH4T W1LL 1ND1V1DU4LLY SUCK MOR3 TH4N TH3 PR3V1OUS ON3  
TT: That’s correct.  
GC: OK4Y  
GC: SH4LL 1 S3RVE 1T W1TH 4 LOV3LY HOUS3 R3D OR WH1T3 OF YOUR HUM4N F3RM3NT3D GR4P3 DR1NKS  
GC: ON3 K1DN3Y OR TWO  
TT: Just the documents on their own would be great.  
TT: Actually…  
GC: 34SY TH3R3 L4LOND3 1 W4S JOK1NG 4BOUT TH3 K1DN3YS 1 N33D THOS3  
TT: Relax, you can probably keep your internal organs. Do you think there’s a way to get us and the box into the Archives?  
GC: HOLD ON

\--gallowsCalibrator (GC) is an idle troll!--

You glance up from your phone screen at Vriska, who is perched on her counter and kicking her legs. She shrugs at you and chugs boiling coffee before fanning her tongue.

“Is that my mug, Serket?”

“Technically, it’s mine.”

The pair of you are back in your clothes and then some: You’re in a sweater that smells like whetstones with an embroidered sign not unlike Kanaya’s. It hangs halfway to your knees, but your shoulders are almost as broad as hers.

Vriska cranes her neck. “What did she say?”

“She’s on board. I think.” You spin your phone on the counter and let your eyes unfocus; Terezi’s sign blurs into some indecipherable teal version of your box bullshit. Your hair is curling.

You sigh. “Are we thinking this through enough?” you ask.

“Oh, absolutely not,” she replies.

“I’m serious.” Spin, spin. You kind of wish Kanaya were here. “It’s all well and good to have an inside man for this investigation, but what if she gets caught? What if _we_ get caught?”

She says, “What if we don’t?”

“Vriska—”

“Think about it! There is nothing here worth submerging in a quarry that we wouldn’t already have found. This could be huge!”

“It could be nothing,” you try, but you can hear and feel your resolve circling the drain. “We could decipher the box and realize all of this was pointless, and Terezi or you or I could—”

“The entire point of meeting up and trying to one-up each other through increasingly questionable means,” she reminds you, “is to find purpose in what you do. It ain’t about the destination, Rosie!”

“It sounds weird when you call me that.”

“It kind of does.”

You chance a smile. “You may have a point, though.”

“I have been known to make good ones, every now and then.”

\--gallowsCalibrator (GC) is online!--

GC: CL34R TOMORROWS SCH3DUL3 W3LL F1GUR3 OUT TH3 1T1N3R4RY OV3R LUNCH  
TT: I owe you one, Pyrope.  
GC: TH3 OUTCOM3 OF TH1S LITTLE 3XCURS1ON W1LL D3T3RM1N3 3X4CTLY HOW M4NY YOU OW3 M3  
GC: SM3LL Y4 L4T3R

\--gallowsCalibrator (GC) is offline!--

\--gallowsCalibrator (GC) is online!--

GC: 4LSO VR1SK4 1 KNOW YOUR3 TH3R3  
GC: WH4T3V3R ROS3 OW3S ME YOU W1LL OW3 M3 DOUBL3  
GC: OK4Y BY33333333

\--gallowsCalibrator (GC) is offline!--

Vriska sighs dreamily. “What a bitch.”

* * *

 

You order delivery after convincing Vriska your semi-victorious sleuthing earned you another hour of sleep. She crawls back to her coon with far less fanfare than usual; you occupy the couch, tucking your arms into the hoodie and draping a blanket that suspiciously looks like it might be Terezi’s over your legs.

Your dreams are wet around the edges, drip-dripping in the corners of your mind and coaxing your heartbeat to join its unhurried rhythm. You dream you’re back in the bottomless night of the quarry, chasing a pinkish light that does not dim or brighten the deeper you go.

The doorbell rings two seconds before you breach the surface of the waking world. Down the hall, a yelp followed by the telltale choke of someone inhaling day-drugs suggests Vriska was subject to the same reveille. She stomps in, back down to one sock, her hair wild and her intimidation factor cranked up to a solid twelve out of ten.

(It was never really made clear which rung you occupied on the societal ladder. On paper, you’re somewhere around even footing with her, but watching her like this, you wonder how Vriska Serket could ever consider you an equal.)

You decide it would be more prudent if you answer the door. The confused goldblood on the front step seems to agree with you. His sleeves are rolled up: the psionic readers planted in his forearm blink slowly at you as you snap your fingers in Vriska’s direction for money.

“You got tip cash?” she asks you.

“Sure.” You look the goldblood over. He looks like he hasn’t slept since last Tuesday. You double the tip, and he throws in an extra dipping sauce before kicking off again.

You stand in the doorway to watch him go, the delivery food in your hands. Grease has stained the bottom of the paper bag. It takes Vriska tapping you on the elbow to rouse yourself completely and set up shop, waiting for Kanaya to finish her shift.

Your girlfriend lets herself in not six minutes later, covered in various colours and checking her hair with a compact. You are as smitten as the first day you saw her. “We got a share platter,” you offer along with a kiss.

“Fantastic.” Kanaya raises an eyebrow. “You taste like Vriska’s shampoo.”

“We’ve had a productive morning.”

“Apparently.” She waggles both eyebrows, now, and you give her a shove. “We’ll fill you in when Terezi gets here.”

Terezi does get here relatively quickly after that. She does not have as much biological matter on her person as Kanaya does, and her buttons are polished to a nigh obnoxious degree. “Sorry I’m late,” she says, despite being forty seconds early, followed by, “Is that moobeast tartare?”

“Dig in.” You lock the door out of precaution: Vriska’s curtains are already closed, and the box provides ominous lighting along with the dim glow emitting from Kanaya’s corner of the table.

The rustle of deli paper and straw packaging provides suitable background noise for you to relay your morning discoveries. After a noisy slurp of what could not possibly be less than half her soda, Terezi asks, “Do you really think it’s seadweller propaganda?”

“What else would require following half a kitchen recipe in Vriska’s shower?” you reply, overturning the saltshaker above your fries; three grains fall out, proving your point.

Vriska adds, “Besides, half the stuff around here is technically seadweller propaganda.”

“Please don’t start, Serket.” Kanaya’s legs are draped over yours.

“Too bad! My house, my conspiracy theories.” Vriska knocks on the table. Plastic forks re-enact last year’s fleet-induced earthquake. “Listen—who runs this place? And I don’t mean overseers or polemarcs, I’m talking big, off-planet leagues.”

You can’t actually tell if Terezi is rolling her eyes, but you can pretty much feel it.

Vriska is unfazed. “We all know Her. _Of_ Her, anyway. Capital H, bolded and underlined Her, the Witch, _Dei Gratia Blah Blah Blah,_ ringing any bells?”

“A few unpleasant ones,” Terezi chimes in.

“There, Pyrope is following!” Vriska steals one of your fries; Terezi leans across the table to smack her. “Think about it, though. The Condesce is the only seadweller ever we hear of. Ever! Sure, there are explanations for the missing fraction of our species, but we get them from?”

There is tangible silence as everyone does their best to focus on their food. Vriska’s penchant for dramatic monologuing is more tolerable on a full stomach.

Kanaya, as is often her situation as Vriska’s ashmate, is the first to begrudgingly shuffle the conversation along. “Is it word of m—”

“Word of mouth!” yells Vriska. The forks continue bouncing with fervour. “There is _no_ written record of seadweller activity for the last four hundred years. Isn’t that a little weird?”

You suppose it could be a little weird. You steal Terezi’s soda to ruminate on this, and almost immediately spit it back out. “Is this grapefruit flavour?”

“Your palate is improving, Rosie!” Terezi filches her cup back from you. “As for your train of thought, Serket, while I must caution you that it’s careening to Treason Station, population Unhappy and Mostly Dead, with broken brakes—”

“Naturally.”

“—I must say it seems pretty concrete.”

She brightens. “Really?”

“Yes! You don’t move up in my domain without an inkling of curiosity, however little recommended it may be.” Terezi slurps a little more; Vriska is not the only one in your little party to fancy the theatrical pauses. “The Archives have a relatively unused entrance in the basement. The lock busted a few months back and nobody really bothered to submit a repair ticket.”

You chew your last fry thoughtfully. “So, what, we walk into the basement like we own the place?”

“Nope!” Terezi grins. “You walk into the basement like it’s take your clade to work day.”

“So we’re inclade, now?” You cock an eyebrow.

“I’d say so, considering you smell like Vriska’s shampoo.”

Kanaya laughs into her food; Vriska tries to get a whiff of her ponytail as subtly as possible, fails, then just pops it over the top of her head. That gets a little chuckle out of you. “Sure. Take us to work, Terezi Pyrope.”

* * *

 

Back home, you open the blinds and watch the evening clouds roll in. It rains like clockwork here, every fourth day: you’re mostly sure it can’t be attributed to the overseers, but ever since your discovery you are increasingly full of questions.

And you had had your fair share of questions to begin with.

After you’d cleared the table, you’d tried recreating the shower experiment in a more controlled environment (read: a saltwater sink bath, treating the box like a pet that dragged in mud rather than potentially deadly government secret). It had worked, sort of, and you and Kanaya had attempted to describe the script to Terezi before she’d given up and licked the glowing lid. (“Agh, that tastes like something no one should ever know!” “That’s it?” “Kind of grapey aftertaste, though.”)

Like you said. Questions after questions.

The rainclouds are a faded blue on the backdrop of sundown. Trolls were nocturnal, a very long time ago: some, like Vriska, still aren’t the biggest fans of direct light. Your apartment is nice and shady, and your favourite weather pattering against the overhang of your balcony coaxes you into opening the window to listen to the snare of rain. It mists where it touches down, like the kind you imagine they dance in, in the movies.

“Rose?”

Kanaya’s finishing up paperwork at the desk: there must have been another accidental grub cannibalism or something, it would explain the industrial-grade stain remover you saw her dump in the laundry downstairs earlier. “What’s up?”

“What happens if we do find something?”

You stick a hand out the window and then run it through your hair. “I don’t know,” you admit, “but do you really want the answer to be nothing?”

She smiles at you over her papers. It coats your brain more pleasantly than any vices you would ever even consider. “She's gotten to you.”

“Maybe a little bit.” Your ears burn, and you rain-style your curling hair over them. “But still. We’ve come this far, haven’t we? It would be a tad silly to give up at this point in the adventure.”

"You aren't much of a half-asser," Kanaya agrees. 

Lightning slices its way through the horizon. You tap out the seconds until the roll of percussion; it shakes around your ribs and fills your lungs with humid midsummer air. 

"It looks good on you."

You finally turn to look her head-on. "What does?"

"Vriska." Kanaya has this particular smile when she knows she's closed in on something. It is barbed as a fishhook, and has you stumbling back into the room to kiss it right off her face. 

* * *

 

Officially, Terezi Pyrope works in the legislaceration department of Internal Risk Assessment and Individual Disposal. The lowbloods that bump into the pencil-pushers have taken to calling them RAIDers, a nickname that makes her laugh and say it belonged on an aerosol can rather than her nameplate.

You congregate in the main foyer of her building, an old brick-and-mortar eyesore that has made it through half a dozen fires and a handful of bureaucratic insurrections.

“Do you think she knows how ugly her workplace is?” Vriska mutters.

Kanaya shushes her.

Terezi meets you three minutes early, this time, chucking lanyards at you with relative accuracy. “I can’t help but feel like I’m on a field trip,” you confess. Your bright purple backpack holding the box does not assuage the illusion very much.

“Lucky for you, there’s no quiz at the end!” replies Terezi, “unless we get caught, in which case you may or may not have to remember your rights.”

The inside of the building is, for starters, a lot cleaner—almost surgically so, like it gets scrubbed down thrice daily. Behind the security desk, another tealblood clacks away at a keyboard over horn-rimmed glasses; a stocky purpleblood spins idly back and forth in a chair behind her, playing with a stress ball in the shape of a poop emoji.

Terezi loudly clears her throat. The tealblood barely gives her the time of day. “Is someone bleeding profusely or near death, Pyrope?”

“Not to my knowledge!” she answers cheerfully.

“Then you have eight seconds left to breathe my air.”

Terezi waves a hand at the three of you, and you hold up your passes like a poorly rehearsed pageant. The tealblood snaps her contraband gum and shoos you all off, and the purpleblood watches you go, accidentally tearing a chunk out of his poop ball.

“Pleasant lot,” you remark as Terezi leads you down a stairwell.

Her cane smacks against every other brick. The sound ricochets to retrace your steps. “Not everyone can have a personality as radiant as mine.”

The stairs seem to go on forever. Kanaya kicks up a little glow, almost self-consciously: you kiss her phosphorescent blush. Finally, Terezi stops at a heavy door, bending to inspect the badge reader before swiping her pass. The door opens soundlessly, and you are swallowed whole by the Archives.

* * *

 

Your steps illuminate the floor around you, but make very little sound, as you wander further into the looming rows of hidden information. Where are you even supposed to start?

Terezi answers the question for you. “Pass me the box, please.”

You shrug off your backpack to tug the artifact free and hold it out for her. In the dim light, it looks even more out of place than on Vriska’s kitchen table the previous day. Terezi takes a cautious whiff, and tucks it under her arm before abruptly changing course: the new corridor has less crackling feeds and wires and more weathered tomes. Unease takes the place of your backpack, tight against your spine.

It looks like no one has set foot in here in...decades, maybe more. You might say this aloud, because Kanaya takes hold of your hand and squeezes lightly. She’s gotten stronger in the last couple years; the pressure eases something in you. Under your feet, minute clouds of dust kick up around your ankles, making Terezi sneeze something fierce and hold the box up higher. Your shadows are long, alien things.

If you will pardon the irony.

“Here,” she says suddenly, and you all pump the brakes, bumping into each other like cartoonish dominoes. Vriska’s good hand falls on the small of your back to brace herself, and your core body temperature shoots up a few degrees.

Terezi sets down the box and blows on her palms, sticking them under the armpits of her uniform. “Did it burn you?” you ask, flabbergasted.

“No,” she says, “it’s freezing.”

The shelves are lined with faded texts not unlike the blinking lights from the box. Any second thoughts you may have had coming in here disintegrate and float in the rays of pink emanating from the box, settling in the prints from your dripping shoes. 

"Can we open it in here?" Kanaya asks.

"Oh, yeah, hold on..." Vriska fishes something out of your backpack. You hadn't even noticed her sneak it in there. 

You wrinkle your nose. "Is that a spray bottle? It's an unknown device, Serket, not a disobedient kitten." 

She flips you off: her metal arm does not raise quite as high. You wonder if she hurt herself in the shower and tuck the thought away in your pocket, out of her reach. "I couldn't fit my entire ablution block in here. This is the next-best thing." 

"Whatever you say." You give the box a wide berth, not quite ready to undergo a rerun of the first opening in closed quarters. Kanaya and Terezi follow suit. 

Vriska crouches to give the box a couple experimental spritzes. "Maybe it will sprout a nice succulent terrarium," you remark.

"Fuck you, Lalonde!" 

And those must be the magic words. The box's glow splinters, releasing its symbols into the dusty air of the Archives. You peer up at them, trying to compare them to the weathered spines and their faded gold ink. Kanaya follows your gaze; Vriska nudges the box with her foot; Terezi just kind of stands there. "Someone care to fill me in?" 

"I think it's a chronology," you muse, reaching up to pick up one of the books. "These are all historical accounts of Earth's time in the Commonwealth."

"So, what, the box is a continuation?" Kanaya skirts around the box to pick up another of the books. 

"More like a prologue, if anything." Vriska attempts to prod one of the floating cryptographs with her index: it dematerializes, the pixels rejoining on the other side of her finger. "This stuff looks fucking primordial."

"Ugh, it reeks." Terezi leans against one of the shelves, glancing back where the shelves disappear into darkness she has no way of seeing. "Did something die in here?"

"Yeah, your patience," Vriska shoots back, before snapping her fangs at Kanaya when she flicks her ear. 

Time crawls along the dusty tile, biting at your ankles. You keep glancing at the hall, but Terezi's empty gaze is fixed in the direction whence you came; her cane rests lightly in front of her, loose in her grip. "If we don't find something soon," she warns, "I'd advise regrouping in a place that doesn't give me the creeps."

Vriska snorts. "But you work here."

"That's exactly why it gives me the creeps!"

"Hold on."

That's Kanaya, frowning down at her current chapter. "I think I'm onto something here, Rose. There's a weird-looking footnote in between these two sections."

She passes you the book, and you're greeted with a garish block of urgent print that takes you three read-throughs to process.

 

if you are reading t)(is assume we are all dead t)(eyre tracking us wit)( the seasons our bodies roll in every tide its been sixty sweeps of t)(is s)(it and s)(es just getting started read the fucking stars t)(ey never learned to LI-E like t)(e rest of us

ill )(ide our trut)(s somew)(ere t)(at )(asnt been ruined fuck t)(is empire and fuck our false gods and fuck t)(e blood in my veins i wanted NON------E OF T)(IS

erase t)(e victors to rewrite )(istory open your goddamn eyes and ask yourself w)(en s)(e is done wit)( us w)(o will s)(e come for next I SAID OP-EN YOUR -EY----ES ROS-E LALOND-E

 

"Rose?"

You surface. Reality is as cold as the text under your hands. "Sorry?"

Vriska's staring at you. "You spaced out on us, dude. Care to fill the rest of the gang in?"

Kanaya's hand is on your leg, a few inches shy of your book. "This entry, it's..."

"Gibberish?" Vriska leans in, suspicious. "I can't make heads or ass of this."

"What are you talking about?" You look back down; the text is still begging you to listen to it. It's begging you—

You let the cover slip through your fingers. It hits the floor hollowly, and reaches your ears like the final nail in someone's coffin. "I..."

"I think," announces Terezi from the edge of the bookshelf, "now is a good time to blow this stand selling frozen artificially-flavoured sugar sticks at laughably inflated prices. You can agree with me at your leisure, but seeing as I have the pass to leave, I recommend not waiting too long."

Vriska jams the book back in your bag before throwing it at Terezi, who chases it down with a mumbled "fuck": you can still feel her looking at you. You won't complain, it feels kind of breezy on your skin. 

"Can you stand, Rose?" Kanaya asks. 

"Of course I can stand," you retort, pushing to your feet and almost toppling over one of the shelves. "Hah. See?" 

Her hand finds yours, sturdy, and to your surprise (is it even really surprise anymore, though?), Vriska claims your other one. "Field trip's over." 

* * *

 

When you were young, and you lived near the lake that liked to speak to you, you were prone to migraines that periodically tore you a new proverbial asshole. They hit with the grace of a semi trailer sans warning horn; when your eyes started adding lights that belonged at some awful discothèque to your scenery you did your best to scarper back to the safety of your bed, with varying degrees of success. When you started dating Kanaya and moved into your current district, they grew less frequent, and after a little while you figured you had grown out of this irritating tendency. 

Goddamn, but it sucks to be wrong, sometimes. 

You do not remember much of your exeunt from the Archives. Behind your lids, sunspots the colour of the box's glyphs run dizzying laps. The polished tile of the main foyer squeaks under your shoes, and you're pretty sure the tealblood glares at you between pops of her gum. 

And the next thing you know, you're back on Vriska's front doorstep. Well, kind of—you are tossed over Vriska's shoulder like a disheveled sack of potatoes. "Pummedown."

"Oh, hey, welcome back." Vriska's fumbling with her key; the action jostles you a little, and for once you're grateful that her chill is more physical than emotional. "Man, what the fuck was in those takeout fries?"

"Not my dignity, that's for sure." You lift your head and squint at her door when it opens with a whine. "This is the part where you tell me you didn't carry me all the way back here." 

"Nope!" she confirms. "Maryam carried you the first half of the trip." 

Kanaya takes this opportunity to part your bangs and kiss your forehead. This is the worst.

You welcome the closed blinds of Casa Serket and greet the shitty couch like a lover after a war, if the battlefield were between your temples. While you conduct face-to-pillow examinations of Vriska's furniture, Kanaya kicks up the kettle: it's one of the "high-speed" designs, which involves controlled explosives and has an enforced caste restriction in most grocery chains. 

The couch sighs. Vriska has somehow already lost a sock again. "So you gonna tell me what was up with your mumbling back there?" 

"When I figure it out." You turn to face her, and the ensuing roll of vertigo convinces you that you already know what her face looks like, so that can wait a little while. "Something terrible happened."

"Something terrible is always happening," she replies.

From the kitchen, you hear a whistle-pop, followed by a less-than-impressed "oh Jesus Christ" from Kanaya and a cackle from Terezi. 

Vriska's feet tuck under your shins. "You saw something," she says, quieter. She is very seldom quiet; only when the gears in her head really start paying their dues. "In the book, you saw something the rest of us couldn't. How?"

"If I knew how, Serket, I very well wouldn't be wrestling with my gag reflex and my short-term memory simultaneously, would I?" 

A steaming mug bumps gently against your shoulder. You grumble a thank-you to your girlfriend, pushing yourself up a few more degrees. Terezi has wordlessly taken up one of the pillows you discarded, another shaped like a skull with broken horns tucked under her arms. The tea tastes like gunpowder: you make a mental note to restock this abysmal collection. 

"Do you think—" you loose a breath and rub one eye with the hell of your free hand. Terezi clicks her tongue before realizing you're not Vriska, then flushes. "Do you think it's possible they were lying? About the sea colonies down in the South Pole?" 

Kanaya's hand in your hair stills. "Wrong how?"

"Wrong like they never made it there." You force more tea down your throat. This mouthful tastes like cardamom. You could use a serious nap, or maybe a brief little frontal lobe-cleansing coma. "Like something got to the waders first and then planted the story to their liking."

There is a long slurp from Terezi's direction before she finally speaks: her expression and tone are careful, in a way that makes you suspect she's been choosing her words since you left that dusty hall of the Archives. "Sounds to me like you're suggesting a voluntary extermination of one-sixth of our species pool. Theoretically, of course."

"Theoretically," you echo at the ripples in your mug. "I know how it sounds, I do." 

"You mean plausible?" Vriska interjects. "Declassified knowledge outlined the regular culling of highblooded heiresses." 

Kanaya resumes carding through your hair, tucking it away from your brow. "If what Rose is insinuating is true, this massacre would not have been restricted to tyrians." 

Vriska leans down to pick up your backpack, pulling out the book and studying it; she reaches up with the intention of rubbing at her socket, and Terezi bares her fangs over her tea. "You think you can figure out the rest with this?"

"I know I can," you reply slowly, "but I don't know if I _should_." 

She sighs, thumbing the corner of the cover. You can see the callouses on her fingers, a detail to focus on when the den starts to tip sideways. "Sleep on it," she decides, and the rest of your crew nod in crooked agreement. You can hear the disappointment in Vriska's voice as well as you can feel it in the back of your neck. "We can figure it all out when you've gotten rest on a horizontal surface." 

Between Kanaya's hands in your hair and the debate Terezi mercifully sparks about the hot-button topic of the week (something about the ethical ramifications of speedruns), you find little room for disagreement, the glow of your backpack almost a third comfort to match the girls surrounding you evenly. 

* * *

In your dreams, you sink.

It is not the lake from your childhood; it’s not the clear, frigid cliff faces of the quarry, either. As you free-fall through the unfathomable dark, there is salt on your lips and lashes. Bubbles rise up past you, then stop altogether. 

Time doesn’t keep counsel on your descent. You’re not bothered by this—what draws your attention is the loneliness of the depths, or, you suppose, the lack thereof. Even where sleep restricts your logic, it is not a far stretch to guess that, beyond the scope of your ill-equipped eyes, you are not alone. 

_Hello?_

Your voice fades into the ink of the sea. You aren’t sure which way is up, or how deep you are: dreams like this don’t give you much information to go on beyond what they intend for you to see. As such, you let the currents pull you gently down. 

_Hello?_

“Oh.”

Adrenaline is injected into your limbs so quickly you’re almost certain you’ll wake up. “Holy shit,” you say, because for all its penchants for the dramatic your subconscious has never actually given you another cast member in these shitty vision quests. 

The voice grows a pair of eyes. They bore into the holes in your skull left behind by your migraine, that horrible, familiar pink. “It’s good to finally properly meet you, Rose Lalonde.”

You can’t tell if you’re still falling. Everything hangs like a held breath between you and this entity. “I…sorry, do I know you?” 

“Only in brief passings of knowledge.” The eyes look down, you think, before focusing on you again. “We had begun to doubt anyone would find us.”

“Us? Who exactly are you?”

“Our names rotted away sweeps and sweeps ago.” If you let your eyes wander, a troll begins to take shape: you see the concave slopes of horns, spatterings of colour along gossamer fins at her temples. She does not bear anything on her chest except three neat holes. “You can’t be remembered if you leave nothing to forget.” 

You pinch the bridge of your nose. Your arm is heavy with water pressure and the chains of sleep.  “That’s a complicated way of saying you left me a note in a registry on a shelf like some second-grader—”

“What’s a second grader?”

“—in future encroaches on my sanity, small talk isn’t a terrible way to break the ice. I won’t hold it against you. Uh, any of you.”

The troll spreads her hands. They drip, somehow, at the fingertips. “We did what we had to do. If not for our survival, then for the survival of those doomed after us.”

"You mean land trolls." 

"She's unhinged." The word takes on life, shaking the very waves around you, over your head, in the chasm under your feet. "All this government facade, it's gone on far too long with no checks of her power. This planet was never equipped for our kind, and She's noticed it too late! This isn't a solution, it's a problem!" 

The troll's voice doubles, then triples, shaking dangerously. One of Terezi's camp counselors' favourite cautionary tales was about seaborn vocals travelling over sonic waves that would shatter glass and sunder buildings, and that was why noise complaints were of the utmost importance. You still think that's bullshit, but here, you can allow the smallest grain of truth to the higher castes, even in death. 

"So what are we supposed to do about it? I mean, all we have is the box and the registry. It's going to take a while to transcribe anything of value, let alone find the right channels to send it through..."

Your companion flicks her fins, and you shiver once, hard enough for your teeth to click. The ghost of your migraine protests. "You will not be alone in this, we promise you."

"Well, no. I have Kanaya, and I have Vriska, now, and Terezi—"

"Not what I meant!" The troll grins, revealing rows of serrated teeth. Your spine is tugged in the direction you assume is up. "Look D-E-EP-ER, Rose Lalonde." 

"Begging pardon, again, but what the fuck is that supposed to—"

Your eyes are open and dry, like you haven't blinked in the better part of a month. You don't remember the grogginess of waking up, or the blanket being tugged over you. You don't remember Kanaya standing, still as stone, over your couch; you don't remember Vriska tossed against the wall with Terezi in a pile of dazed limbs. 

You definitely don't recall them coming in, but you do remember the RAIDer receptionist and her vertically endowed purpleblood cohort, the latter of which looks decidedly more jazzed to see you than before, in that roundabout way clowns tend to have. 

The receptionist snaps her gum, holds up your box and says, "I asked your matesprit to put on more water. We need to have a little chat."


End file.
